THE REALITY BEHIND A CONCEPT
 | The completed concept vehicle debuts today with tires different from those shown here. |
From drawings to clay to a full-sized model
Automotive News / January 8, 2007 - 1:00 am
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ith the Conceptual Data Development data in hand, they were ready to make a full-sized clay model. A massive pile of clay sat ready. It looked like a mud-covered behemoth in the middle of the studio. Beneath this pile lay an armature of plywood, steel and foam. Members of the technical staff had translated the data into instructions for the milling machines. The machines started whirring, and gradually the Jeep began to emerge. After about a week the machines stopped. The freshly milled model was moved outdoors to the courtyard for review in good daylight. The team gathered to admire its work. But the thrill of seeing the vehicle in clay quickly faded as the design team realized something was wrong. |
"The front end looked way too short. It was pushed back," Renkert recalled. "It looked like it had already been impacted into a wall or something." Moreover, the door sides were too flat, almost as if they were made of cardboard, Renkert said. "We expect all this. That's why we mill it in clay." Creed, too, had concerns. "The vehicle at one point had absolutely enormous wheels and tires on," he said. "The vehicle was so tall, you had to have a stepladder to climb up and get into it." The deadline to hand over the clay model to Metalcrafters was fast approaching, and major changes were needed. In the three weeks between mid-March and early April, Vardis modified his sketch so many times, he can't remember. At first they added six inches of clay to the front end. It wasn't enough. Renkert remembered: "We had another weekly review with Ralph and he said: 'I'm sorry, guys, but I'm just not with that front end; it's not there yet. You've got to make it longer.' And we're just standing there, kind of deflated a little bit. Basically he's telling us to start over." The clay-modeling staff went back to work. They added another six inches, and this time it looked good. The team realized Gilles had been right. "It took him coming in cold to see it," said Renkert. "That's why you need guys like him to come in and give you that oversight, because they're not living with it on a daily basis. We're there every day. We're looking at it every day. And you get a little blind to something sometimes." During their numerous reviews, Creed and Gilles were trying to recapture the features that originally attracted them to Vardis' concept. "I like the sketch. I thought that's what I'm buying," Creed recalled saying. "I'm buying this house plan, and you're building me something different." |
During that intense three-week stretch, Vardis sometimes stayed overnight preparing for a review. After everyone else deserted the office about 4 or 5 p.m., he would take off his headphones and crank up his speakers. Techno was his music of choice. "What happens is, the music has a lot of repetitive beats. And when you're sketching, you're drawing a line, you're repeating that line several times over and over. And sometimes you can get into this rhythm with the music, and it's a real nice synergy that happens." Jeep studio director Sgalia disapproved of Vardis' overnight shifts. Vardis' girlfriend playfully questioned his sanity. Even the night cleanup crew told him to get a life. "Those guys are coming in shaking their heads, too," Vardis said. But by then, he had more than music to keep him going. His girlfriend had surprised him with a gift: the very diving watch that inspired him in the beginning. Farewell to clay With all the clay changes, the design team had missed its completion deadline by about a week. On May 18, the afternoon before the Metalcrafters representatives arrived, clay modelers were busy covering the clay with Dinoc, a film that that gives a model the appearance of sheet metal and glass. After dipping the strips in a vat of water, modelers would carefully stretch them across the surface with putty knives. The Metalcrafters people arrived the next morning. The clay model was fully decked out in Dinoc. From a distance, it even looked drivable. It had real tires, with cardboard cutouts standing in for tire rims and other accents. As Metalcrafters' representatives took copious notes, Vardis and other members of the design staff slowly walked around the vehicle, discussing the fine points needed to fabricate it: Tow hooks and taillamps, a line here or there. The studio looked hastily tidied up. Gone was the vat of water used the day before to apply the Dinoc. There were still a couple of telltale clumps of clay on the floor at the rear of the vehicle. Somebody scooped them up while nobody was looking. Little specks and smears of red clay still decorated the floor. The next afternoon, a group of top executives came through for a review, among them Chrysler group CEO Tom LaSorda. To Vardis' relief, the vehicle passed that supercritical inspection. LaSorda even called it exciting. "The Jeep looked beautiful," Vardis recalled. "Everybody was nodding their head, saying, 'Wow, this is going to be a great show car.' " A couple of days after the walk-through, the model, in a moving van, headed to California. It was a big milestone. But back in Auburn Hills, the work wasn't nearly over. |
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In the weeks after the clay handoff, the next hurdle was getting detailed data on the interior to Metalcrafters so workers could begin building that, too. Up to then, Wilkins' interior existed only in a computer. There was no physical model.
During those weeks, the job of color and trim expert Turner heated up. She had to order and approve for shipment to Metalcrafters numerous fabrics, leathers and paints. Turner had begun the process months earlier by meeting with Vardis and Wilkins.
"Our job is to make the exterior and interior designers' dreams come true," she said.
Turner recalled the meeting with Vardis: "He showed me a picture of this watch. He explained to me why the watch, because it was very mechanical and yet sculptural, and that was the kind of feeling he wanted to portray in his Jeep."
That guidance helped her choose the shades of silver for the exterior. She chose "argent chromium," which Creed later renamed argent pearl.
A photo of a couch in a home furnishings catalog helped Turner find the right shade of orange for Wilkins' orange and black (initially it was dark brown) interior.
She named her interior colors bark black and firewood orange. "I came up with that by thinking of Jeep, camping and things like that. And the bark black, the same thing: trees, wilderness."
During those critical weeks, Vardis and Wilkins toiled away at producing "sketchbooks" - meticulous reports that describe every detail of the vehicle, all the way down to specifications for the little "Trail Rated" badge. These top-secret sketchbooks are like recipe books for creating a Trailhawk from scratch.
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